Exodus - Leon Uris [145]
Under Ottoman rule the Syrian province had also included Palestine and Lebanon. France felt she was entitled to northern Palestine. The British were adamant. They too wanted a terminal from the Mosul oil fields at Haifa, and they argued that because of the Balfour Declaration and the unique position of Palestine as a promised Jewish homeland it should stay under British rule.
As a result, the French hired several tribes of Syrian Arabs to stir up trouble in Palestine and grab up as much of northern Palestine as possible until fixed boundaries were set.
Those Jews who had ventured into the Huleh to Kfar Giladi were caught in the trap. The French-hired Arabs, in an effort to dislodge them in order to fortify French border claims, attacked Tel Hai, the very hill that Barak and Akiva had crossed to come into Palestine.
Joseph Trumpledor, the legendary Jewish soldier of fortune, made a valiant stand at Tel Hai. He himself was killed but Tel Hai held and the Jews remained at Kfar Giladi and the Huleh Valley remained within the British mandate.
The next of France’s troubles came from Faisal, son of the sherif of Mecca and leader of the alleged Arab revolt in World War I. Faisal arrived in Damascus, sat himself down, and declared himself king of a new greater Arab state and the new head of the Moslems. The French chased him out of Syria. Faisal moved on to Bagdad where the British accorded him better treatment. They rewarded their faithful servant by creating a new state out of the Mesopotamian Province. They called the country Iraq and proclaimed Faisal king.
Faisal had a brother named Abdullah who had to be rewarded too. The British, without authorization from the League of Nations, formed another “country” from part of the Palestine mandate and named Abdullah its king. This country they called Trans-Jordan.
Both Faisal and Abdullah were arch enemies of Ibn Saud, who had refused to help the British in World War I.
So—the British fared well. They had their puppets in Iraq and Trans-Jordan—two creations. They had Egypt, the Suez Canal, the Mosul oil fields, and the Palestine mandate. In addition they had a dozen “protectorates” and sheikdoms around the Arabian Peninsula.
The British knew about Arab hate feuds and employed the proved method of “divide and rule.” Their Arab puppets were kept happy with the latest automobiles and with well-stocked harems.
Palestine was a different problem. It could not be governed by British puppets. The Balfour Declaration had been ratified by the entire world. The articles of mandate further bound the British to create a Jewish homeland. Further, the Jews had presented them with a democratically elected quasi-government, the Yishuv Central, the only democratic body in the entire Middle East.
Barak Ben Canaan, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, and a dozen other Zionist leaders entered into a historic negotiation with Faisal, then leader of the Arab world. A mutual friendship pact was signed between Jews and Arabs in which each agreed to respect the aspirations of the other. The Arabs welcomed the return of the Jews and appreciated their historic rights to Palestine and their humanitarian rights to a homeland. Further, the Arabs stated openly that they welcomed the culture and the “Hebrew gold” the Jews were bringing in. Further, the Arabs in many quarters had proclaimed the Jews as redeemers.
In Palestine as elsewhere in the Arab world, there was no representative Arab government. When the British asked the Arabs to present their government, the usual inner-Arab squabble ensued. The various alliances of effendi families spoke for a small percentage of Arabs.
The most powerful effendi family was the El Husseini clan which owned land in the Jerusalem area. They were so feared by the other effendis that a power block was formed against them that made impossible any form of Arab representation.
The leader of